The present invention relates to a sound recording/reproducing method and apparatus for digitally recording audio or sound signals onto a recording medium, such as a memory or hard disk, and reproducing the recorded signals from the recording medium.
In recent years, sound recording/reproducing apparatus have been used widely which are capable of digitally recording audio or sound signals onto a recording medium, such as a memory or hard disk, and reproducing the recorded signals from the recording medium.
However, when any of various kinds of sound filed processes or frequency characteristic processes is to be performed, using a digital signal processor (hereinafter also referred to as a “DSP”), in accordance with characteristics of a music piece to be reproduced, such sound recording/reproducing apparatus would present the problem that parameter settings of the DSP have to be changed per music piece and such parameter setting changing tends to be extremely complicated and burdensome operations for a user.
Generally, the recording capacity of such sound recording/reproducing apparatus increases as the capacity of the recording medium used therein increases. By virtue of an increase in the capacity of recording media today, the number of music pieces recordable by the sound recording/reproducing apparatus is also increasing. However, as the number of music pieces recordable by the sound recording/reproducing apparatus increases, there occurs a greater likelihood of music pieces being recorded from various different sound sources onto the recording medium of the apparatus, which would result in undesired unevenness in recorded level of the music pieces on the recording medium and hence great differences in sound volume among the music pieces when the music pieces are reproduced from the recording medium.
For example, in cases where music pieces are recorded onto the recording medium of the apparatus from a single CD (Compact Disk) having these music pieces recorded thereon at a substantially uniform level, there would be produced no great uneveness in recorded level of the music pieces on the apparatus' recording medium. However, in cases where music pieces are recorded onto the recording medium from a plurality of CDs, there would be created a possibility of sound volume, with which the recorded music pieces are reproduced by the sound recording/reproducing apparatus, greatly differing among the music pieces due to a difference in original recorded level among the CDs.
Although some of the known sound recording/reproducing apparatus are designed to allow the user to adjust the recorded level at the time of recording, adjusting the recorded level at the time of recording tends to be extremely complicated and burdensome operations for the user. Further, if such recorded level adjustment is applied to digital recording, there tends to be created a likelihood of the sound quality being degraded. If, on the other hand, the sound volume is adjusted manually at the time of reproduction, the recorded level difference among the music pieces on the recording medium can be absorbed; however, thus adjusting the reproduced sound volume per music piece tends to be extremely complicated and burdensome operations for the user as in the case of the above-mentioned level adjustment at the time of recording.
As a solution to the above-discussed inconvenience of recorded level unevenness among music pieces, there has been proposed a sound reproducing method which is arranged to detect an average of respective recorded levels of music pieces by reproducing the sound data of the music pieces from the recording medium at high speed and then adjust reproducing sound volume on the basis of the detected average level (Japanese Patent Laid-open Publication No. HEI-5-128731). However, with the proposed reproducing method, where it is necessary to detect the average of recorded levels prior to reproduction of the music pieces, a relatively long time is required before the music pieces are actually reproduced.